PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION.

JAPAN! All hail! Casting off its heathenish traditions, as one casts off wornout garments, and reclothing itself in the spirit of modernism, it enters the list of civilized countries, with a constitution, a parliament, and a compiete outfit of government. Religion is henceforth free in Japan; the right of suffrage is extended to males who are above twenty-five years of age and whose taxes amount to twenty-five dollars; the right of property is inher ent and inalienable; naturalization is granted to foreigners who have resided fifteen years in the country; and choice of professions or labor is left to the untrammeled judgment of the individual. The regeneration of Japan is the result of little more than twenty years of agitation, conflict, and a persistence of purpose on the part of the Mikado and the statesmen who have supported him. The touch of the Occidental spirit aroused him from his reverie, and the people in turn recognized the senility ani insufficiency of the customs of their fathers and the laws of the ages. Strifes, many and serious, mark the passage of the twenty years, during which Christianity has rooted itself in the chief cities of the empire, an political reform has been the war-cry of the throne. Heathendom totters to its fall. China will next wheel into line, and the rusty gates of Africa will soon swing wide open to let the King of glory enter. At such a time, and with such an outlook, who cares to read the pessimisms of Canon Taylor respecting missions?

Fortunately, the American republic is not seized with that land-hunger that devours or irritates the nations of Europe, inciting them to oppres sion of small and helpless peoples in different quarters of the globe. Rich in her possessions lying between the seas, her policy has been along the line of internal development rather than external aggrandizement. The jingoism of the Earl of Beaconsfield finds little or no response among us. Only now and then has the temptation to depart from this policy received thoughtful consideration. Mr. Seward extended the dominion of the United States over Alaska, which, of doubtful expediency at the time, has not involved us in European complications or burdened us with unexpected exactions. President Grant heroically urged the purchase of San Domingo, but the national conservatism rejected it, quite to our disadvantage. The Samoan trouble re-opens the foreign question, but we trust that after the vindication of our rights and the maintenance of our interests in that quarter we shall adhere to our policy of non-interference in the Old World's mischiefs and dilemmas. As we herald the Monroe doctrine, declaring that the Eastern Hemisphere must let the Western Hemisphere alone, we must be prepared to accept that doctrine applied by the Old World to the New World. The chief argument for our conserv atism is not national fear, or inability to cope with Europe, but the neces sity of attention to the development of our resources and the perfection of our form of government. A few years more and the remaining Territories

must be admitted as States into the Union, completing the original plan for the establishment of a strong republic on this continent. Whatever is weak or inefficient in our governmental machinery; whether the executive branch of the government is too limited in power, or already possesses excessive prerogatives; whether statehood implies too much or too little independence; whether free speech is a dangerous privilege, or a condition of free government; whether anarchy or socialism shall be permitted to take root in American soil, or be arrested in the early stages of its destructive manifestations; whether Mormonism, intemperance, and crime shall be extinguished by law or coddled by statesmanship, are some of the problems that should engage the thought and wisdom of the American people. Almost as important is the development of our material possibilities, that the nation may be strong in itself. We have no time to make war upon the islands of the seas, or to grapple with the iron-clad nations of the Old World for a title to a strip of land not worth a picayune. Besides, as a Christian nation our position is such that, refusing to mingle in the strifes of the nations, we may finally commend peace to the world. Our example of an unwarlike spirit will become contagious and lead to disarmament, for which Italy is ready, and with which Germany herself has more than once hinted a word of sympathy. Self-defense, which will justify the protection of our coasts and the preservation of our honor, is quite different from aggression outside of our territory and copartnership in the government of the hemispheres. If in our external relations we shall be conservative, and in our internal sphere we shall be patriotically radical, we shall fulfill our mission, and hasten the reign of righteousness and peace in all the earth.

The monument craze is spreading among the nations, and in the United States in particular. A statue of Shakespeare was recently unveiled in Paris; the Swedes of Chicago are providing the funds for a shaft in honor of Linnæus; General Gordon is commemorated by a life-size figure of himself in Trafalgar Square, London; the completion of the monument in memory of Washington's Head-quarters at Newburg has been ordered by Congress; the grave of Jenny Lind at Malvern was recently decorated with a mammoth granite cross, having a marble medallion in the center; the statue of Lewis Cass was placed in the Capitol at Washington in February; Miles Standish will soon have a monument in Duxbury; Robert Burns was "unveiled" in Albany, N. Y., last year; an heroic bronze of Rafael Dana Baralt, the historian of Venezuela, will be placed on its pedestal in Maracaybo next September; Fritz Reuter, the German novelist, is advertised by a bronze bust in Lincoln Park, Chicago; and Nathan Hale, a hero of the Revolution, will appropriately, by means of a statue, honor the City Hall Park, New York. The monument is a sign or token of the civilization under which it stands. Egypt crowded her cities and deserts with obelisks and pyramids that remain unto this day, and testify to the spirit, customs, laws, and beliefs of the times of their erection. The Roman

empire, in roads, aqueducts, temples, walls, forums and palaces guarded or graced by statues of exquisite beauty, left enduring evidence of the strength of its foundations, the character of the tastes and pursuits of the people, and the causes of its decay and extinction. Napoleon erected manuments, in the form of arches or columns, all over Europe as the proof of his power and the extent of his conquests, but they speak of a glory that has passed away. Our age is running into a kind of idolatry of marble and bronze. At the present rate of manufacture our national gods will be many in a few years. The monuments are multiplying, and the sculptors, eminent and obscure, have enough to do. The war of 1861-1865 stimulated the business, because it developed heroes worthy of commemoration. The federal soldier deserves a statue, a pension, every thing that a grateful people can bestow; the scientist, the discoverer, the inventor, the statesman, the native poet, the great theologian, the philaɔthropist, and he who walks in the sun, may be entitled to this recogaition; but we protest against the use of the statue to hoist into notoriety those who never leaped out of their local circle, and were never known to give a thought to their race or perform an act that was broad enough to be patriotic or philanthropic, moral enough to be reformatory or initiative of moral movements, or typical in any sense of American genius and life. For proper subjects of commemoration we point to our heroes who estab lished the Republic; to our history, which abounds with representatives of American culture and thought; to our churches, which can name theologians by the score who have quickened religious life; and to every phase of our civilization, in which men and women may be found, living or dead, who are worthy of bronze and marble. We do not object to the statue: we object to many of the subjects. We do not criticise the idea of the monument; we implore an eclecticism in the choice of those who shal represent the present age in stone to the generations to come.

Of all the kingdoms contemporaneous with or interested in Israel in the period of the captivities, not one has survived to the present day except Persia. Though the civilization of Cyrus has perished, and Persia is one of the basest of kingdoms, it has maintained an unbroken existence since the Jews exoded from her cities and returned to the land of their fathers. Babylon is reduced to an epitaph; Nineveh invites the world to her grave; Egypt perished two thousand years ago; Edom is buried in its caves; Moab is without a descendant upon the earth; the Canaanite is a memory; Syria is in the blackness of mourning because she is not; and all the other nations that were related to God's people either by oppression or favor, or as the result of conquest or voluntary submission, have closed their history. Persia, though groveling in the dust, remains as a testimony of the Providence that, preserving the Jewish people from extinction, has also preserved the one kingdom which, though envious and cruel in war, obeyed God in returning the captives to their own land. We hesitate to infer that on this account Persia will play a role in the future; but we

note with satisfaction that railways, steamships, telegraph and telephone lines, mine-opening, and general changes in its material equipments are taking place, with the design to lift Persia into strength and respectability. Neither Russia nor England has succeeded in partitioning its territory or depriving the people of their independence. It is now too late to destroy Persia; the day of its redemption is at hand.

The Paris Universal Exposition of May 5 to October 31, 1889, promises to be a loadstone of commanding attraction. While the monarchies of Europe maintain a jealous reserve toward the enterprise, the people see in it a great opportunity for national renown, and are calling for more space for the exhibition of their products than can be granted. The republics of the world whose relations with France are entente cordiale approve the project, and will contribute to its success by co-operation and representation through legally appointed commissioners of the different departments of government during the Exposition. America will be present at this international institution. General W. B. Franklin, Commissioner-General to the Exposition, believes that it will be the finest and largest ever opened, and is therefore anxious that the government display should be authorized by Congress in order that a proper impression may be made upon Europe. Always favoring World Expositions, we have noted that they do not insure peace or fraternity among nations, or strengthen the doctrine of the brotherhood of man. The main result is commercial and material. Still, underneath all may be the throb of an international spirit that some day will erupt in longings for oneness of all things.

As the North Pole refuses to be interviewed, Henry Villard has projected a South Polar Exploring Expedition, which will leave this country in April and return when its work shall have been accomplished. Men and ships have been wrecked in the exploration of the Arctic Circle, but not without permanent advantage. Discovery costs something. The opposition to further sacrifice in the vicinity of the North Pole is the cry of cowardice, and contrary to the providential method of opening the world. Knowledge as well as religion has an altar. Men should as freely lay

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down their lives for the sake of science as for the sake of faith. trust the South Pole will be graciously disposed toward the explorers, but, if as obstinate as its antipode, the explorers can either die or return and report what they did not discover.

SPIRIT OF THE REVIEWS AND MAGAZINES.

BROWSING, as Charles Lamb might say, among the Magazines and Reviews of the last three months, one cannot well help noticing the suggestive fact that several of them vigorously discuss questions of practical morality. In the New Englander, for example, the immorality of speculation is logically demonstrated. In the Quarterly Review (London) gambling is placed in an ethical pillory. In the Contemporary Review immoral literature is strongly denounced. In the Forum the indifference of the churches to the importance of the vital question of the relation which a proper application of the law of neighborly love bears to the solution of the social problem is severely but justly characterized. The Baptist Quarterly Review shows the deadening and secularizing influence of the Sunday paper; points to the bearing which inconstant attendance on church sabbath services and indulgence in driving and social visiting on Sundays have on the alleged neglect of the masses to attend public worship; also utters incisive words concerning the bribery which marred the late presidential election. Our Day utters no uncertain words against the immoral influence of the Sunday newspaper: and the Catholic World boldly places the so-called Trusts, which are such disturbing forces in modern business, in the category of things condemned by sound ethical principles. To the Christian thinker this almost simultaneous treatment in the reviews of questions in practical ethics is an indication that many Christian men are awakening to a perception of the possible and probable disastrous effects of certain practices which are stealthily creeping into the life, not of society only, but also of the churches. Usually, in writing for intelligent readers, the presentation of ethical principles is deemed sufficient to determine their convictions and practice. But here we have those principles vigorously applied to acts which the popular conscience has ceased to condemn, and which many who wear cloaks of discipleship are struggling to baptize with the Christian name. It is therefore apparent that the enormity of the evils condemned, and the growing stolidity both of the public and the Christian conscience, are giving birth to a conviction that no mere reasoning on principles is sufficient to quicken the moral sense, either of society in general or of those Christians who have blinded their own moral perceptions by participation in prevailing wrong practices, and that nothing less than plain denunciation of those profitable and pleasant deeds as being immoralities can prevent the further demoralization of the popular conscience. Hence every Christian thinker must rejoice over the plain, direct, and positive condemnation of existing evils in the Reviews and Magazines of the day.

Looking thoughtfully on the recent history of the Christian Church, one is led to believe that her great adversary, the devil, having vainly tried to destroy her faith through the manifold forms of modern skepticism, is now striving to sap the foundations of her spirituality by the fascinations of an innocent-visaged secularism. Neither atheistic materialism,